Love at First Slice by Dan Allison
Synopsis
A story based game about a pizza shop that will be closed down in 5 days. Deliver the last few pizzas while saving up enough money to buy your coworker Iona, a parting gift before you go.
Controls
WASD/D-Pad/Analogue Stick - Movement
Q/Square (PS)/X (Xbox) - Pick up pizza (Only one can he held at a time) when standing to next to one, or drop it in the bin when standing next to the bin
Space/X (PS) /A (Xbox) - Continue Dialogue
Development
All the code, art, animations and writing were done by me. The audio was from resources available online. Everything was done as part of the jam and I am exhausted.
I lost a bunch of art that I made half way through the jam which was a pain, and my main focus was on the story/art/presentation rather than making complex gameplay. I would have loved another half day or so to polish/tidy things up but hey, that's the nature of the jam. Hopefully the conversations between Guvlain and Iona are enough to drive you through to the end of the game!
Screenshots
Licenses:
Trees by Roa | https://soundcloud.com/roa_music1031/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Walk Around (LoFi Ver) by Roa | https://soundcloud.com/roa_music1031/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Certain SFX from Zapsplat.com
Resurrect 32 Colour Palette by Kerrie Lake (@KerrieLake) - https://lospec.com/palette-list/resurrect-32
Scribbles font by https://andrewdavidj.itch.io/scribbles
| Link | https://danallison.itch.io/love-at-first-slice |
| Link | https://danallison.itch.io/love-at-first-slice |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/love-at-first-slice |
Ratings
| Overall | 274th | 3.868⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 389th | 3.632⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 801th | 3.092⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 371th | 4.118⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 377th | 4⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 293th | 3.595⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 142th | 4.108⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 60🗨️ |
I found the delivery mechanic a bit repetitive after day four (I guess thats how you feel as a delivery boy) but kept playing to see the end. Well executed!
PS: almost broke my heart when I had to bin three wrong pizzas in a row in front of her eyes
I like that people found it relaxing! As the jam went on and I needed to cut things out, I scrapped the timers and just let the player play at their own pace which I think works better anyway. I'm happy to hear so many positive comments about the story too, I've never done anything like this before so it's amazing to see that people are enjoying it.
@obittner . I wanted to have some other mechanics involving spells to mix things up a bit (Speed up, fireball to get through fences/bushes) but I didn't have time. I also wanted to add some dialogue when you delivered pizzas to give a bit of a reward in and I'm really sad I didn't have time for that.
@mateu No friendzoning here! Though I'm happy for you to interpret it however you like. I debated the last line, "I would have settled for pizza pals", for a while but I wanted to come across as "Of course I'll adventure with you, but I would have been happy even if we're just making pizzas, as long as we're together". Sounds like it didn't quite get there which is a shame but that's game jams for you!
@archaeognathus Wow this is incredible feedback, it really, really means a lot, thank so much and I'm so happy you liked it as much. I'm actually the same in regards to romantic stories but this just kinda unfolded naturally as I made progress and I'm glad it worked out how it did.
One of the games that I was most involved in the narrative while playing, congratulations on the excellent work and amazing game! („• ᴗ •„)
@tddawson @arktas Yeah I agree about the hitboxes, I had issues with the sprite sorting and had to decide whether to have weird looking sprites or oddly behaving hitboxes at the last minute. Decided to get the sprites working and hoping nobody would notice the hitboxes but obviously wasn't going to happen!
@mrs-wheelsx Thank you so much for such lovely feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! The last time I did Ludum Dare, I made a turn base tactics game and I'm kicking myself for not linking the two games together now. Could have had my own Ludum Dare universe!
@yumykon That's incredibly nice of you to say, really. One of the optional challenges I gave myself was to make portraits because I wanted to get some kind of emotion off and I don't have a lot of experience making those kind of sprites so I was sad to not find the time for it but I'm really glad to hear it didn't stop you enjoying the game.
The dialog is of course the main driving force of the game in that sense but I enjoyed the pizza delivery gameplay as well. I did not get bored of it at all -- I can see why it could be considered repetitive, but this was not a problem for me. After all, it is made extremely clear that we only have to do exactly 5 days of pizza delivery, and this just isn't enough for me to get bored.
There is of course also parallels to other repetitive, working-a-job games like farming games, and I think the art style in particular is reminiscent of Stardew Valley. The art (plus the music) is actually one of the reasons I find the delivery gameplay quite relaxing -- it's kind of like walking through town in Stardew Valley, it's just a nice space to move through.
One thing I do think would be cool: having to physically go to the blacksmith shop yourself to get the gift. I was glad that there was a separate dialog for that, but I think it would be even better if the player had to actually go there manually; I think it would make the story more immersive. That's a bit of a nitpick, of course.
Overall, this was great. I had a fantastic time playing through this. Great job!